English

Adjective

drunk as a lord

1. (simile) Completely drunk.
   • 1909: Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

     He gave her a good hidin' an' went to th' Blue Lion an' got as drunk as a lord.

   • 1997 Max Crawford Lords of the Plain : A Novel, University of Oklahoma Press, ISBN 978-0806129082, page 183

     "Good many of them drunk as lords," said DuBois of the established merriment of the guests.

   • 2001 Ryotaro Shiba and Eileen Kato Drunk as a Lord: Samurai Stories, Kodansha International, ISBN 978-4770027375
   • 2004: Fyofor Dostoyevsky, The House of the Dead

     Then vodka was brought out; the hero of the day would get drunk as a lord and always walked all over the prison, reeling and staggering, trying to show to everyone that he was drunk, that he was “jolly” and so deserving of general respect. Everywhere among the Russian people a certain sympathy is felt for a drunken man; in prison he was positively treated with respect.

   • 2006 Edward Marston The Princess of Denmark: An Elizabethan Theater Mystery Featuring Nicholas Bracewell, St. Martin's Minotaur, ISBN 978-0312356187, page 17

     "How he managed to light it, God knows, for he was as drunk as a lord.

Usage notes

• This term follows the common pattern of omitting the first "as" of the full form "as drunk as a lord".

Synonyms

• (drunk similes): drunk as a skunk, drunk as a fiddler, pissed as a newt

Antonyms

• sober as a judge

Translations

References

• Idiom: Drunk as a Lord